Over the past several years, photosharing has become widely accepted by photo enthusiasts. Many photosharing websites currently exist that allow users to upload digital images to the site for storage on a server and for viewing by others over the Internet. There are generally three methods for delivering images to the photosharing site: 1) using file upload capabilities of a web browser, 2) delivering images via e-mail submission, and 3) installing a separate upload application on the user's computer to upload the images. Examples of photosharing sites that offer a separate upload application include Ofoto.com and Shutterfly.com.
As digital photography becomes more prevalent, the number of digital images that are stored on photosharing sites will increase dramatically, and the number of images will make it increasingly difficult for a user to find desired images. Metadata offers a solution to this problem by providing a means by which users can categorize their images for later search and retrieval. Metadata is typically supported by most online photosharing sites in that once images are uploaded to the site, the user may view the metadata associated with an image.
There are PC-based image applications in existence that allow a user to enter metadata to categorize the images stored on the PC. However, only the upload application submission method allows the user to view, modify, or add any metadata associated with the images prior to the submission process, assuming of course that the upload application is programmed with these capabilities.
If the upload application is not programmed with such capabilities, then at least two different applications are required the upload application, and a PC-based image application. Obviously not every user of the upload application will have, or will use, a PC-based image application to enter metadata prior to uploading the images.
In addition, whether or not the user uses a PC-based image application or an image upload application to enter metadata, requiring the user to manual input all the metadata has a further drawback. The drawback is that in order to categorize a group of images, the user must retype the metadata values for each image. When categorizing the contents of a digital camera, manually entering metadata for each image is extremely tedious and time-consuming for the user. The problem is even worse for users who have a large collection of photo CDs or scanned images that they wish to electronically archive on the photosharing site.
In addition to requiring the user to manually input metadata, conventional upload applications have the further disadvantages. For example, upload applications do not have the ability to edit images, add additional file type support, or the ability to support well-known image recognition applications. Upload applications further fail to distinguish different types of metadata to the user. For example, one type of metadata is metadata that is automatically attached to the image by a digital camera at the time of capture that identifies attributes about the image, such as exposure setting, image resolution, file size, and so on. Another type of metadata may be user categorization information entered into the PC-based image application by the user. Most conventional application that are capable of displaying metadata display all metadata together as one group.
Accordingly, what is needed is a method and system for automatically discovering and assigning metadata to digital images, and for submitting the metadata to the photosharing service using a single application. The present invention addresses such a need.